Fred "The Hammer" Williamson

This devilishly handsome former football player managed to parlay his sports fame into a career in acting, writing and directing. Born and raised in Gary, IN, Williamson spent the 1960s playing footba...
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At one point in history, the moniker of jack-of-all-trades was a great compliment. People who could dabble in multiple arenas were highly regarded. Today, crossing over from one professional field into another is not always cause for commendation — at least not in the entertainment world. When a singer or an athlete decides to crossover into acting, we tend to balk at the notion and develop doubts immediately. This is not a prejudice without precedence, as many examples of ill-conceived transitions into attempted movie stardom have left a sour taste in our collective mouths.
The concept of athletes attempting transformation into actors is nothing new. For example, some of the most prominent stars in the blaxploitation movement were NFL stars first; Fred “The Hammer” Williamson was a defensive back and Jim Brownwas a running back. Over the last few years, former WWE wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has successfully crossed over from being “the most electrifying man in sports entertainment” to being a major box office draw.
What is the secret of The Rock’s success?
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As much as we cast aspersions on WWE wrestlers aiming to become movie stars, in many ways they are specially equipped to make the switch. More so than any other sport, wrestling is as much about theatrical performance as it is about athletic prowess. Wrestlers create personas for themselves, characters really, and then move those characters through a series of designated storylines. It’s scripted entertainment much like film. In fact, wrestlers often have to improvise both their dialogue during interviews and movements during matches. From a cinematic performance standpoint, that ability is a valuable asset.
Johnson is hardly the first wrestler to attempt this tricky maneuver. The likes of Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper are among those who had previously tried this with limited success. Hogan made a series of dreadful b-movies in the ‘80s and Piper similarly became a cult movie icon for his turns in films like They Live and Hell Comes to Frogtown. But even Hulkster and Piper can’t boast the kind of mainstream film prominence that The Rock has enjoyed.
The biggest difference between Dwayne Johnson and Hulk Hogan is that Johnson remained focused enough in his film career to fight through the novelty. The draw to any Hulk Hogan movie was that it would just be Hulk Hogan’s in-ring character doing a series of whacky things in different settings. The Rock, on the other hand, made an earnest effort to develop characters within each new project using his previously honed skills, as opposed to just porting over a persona from his wrestling days. This might also explain why he has been so adamant about shedding his WWE nickname and just being billed as Dwayne Johnson.
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That’s not to say The Rock has never had a film that flopped, but he’s also been able to select plenty of projects that amplify his natural leading man attributes. One the hand, he recognizes that the action genre is a natural arena for wrestlers-turned-actors; making fake fights appear real is WWE tradecraft. Where The Rock has the edge on, for example, Stone Cold Steve Austin, who is currently appearing in several direct-to-video action films, is that he also utilizes his innate and wonderful sense of humor. The guy is just plain funny. He’s still the only athlete to ever host SNL twice, and no small part of that is his outstanding comedic timing. This is the reason The Rundown, which combined action and laughs, is the optimal Rock project. Even as recently as Fast Five, he’s adeptly applied this combination.
But above everything else, beyond all the occupational roots that allowed for a smooth transition, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has proven to be a box office draw—with staying power—due to his abundance of charisma. The camera loves this guy, and it doesn’t matter if that camera is shooting a movie or a live wrestling event. He commands the screen for more reasons than just his physical presence. Hulk Hogan may have been blessed with a larger-than-life personality, but Johnson is effortlessly charming in a way that engenders an admiration within a wide audience. It is this charisma that has allowed this former athlete to become an actor who has outlived the gimmick of his crossover, and therefore the reason he has four movies coming out in 2013 alone.
[Photo Credit: Hollywood.com Illustration]
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Film acting is a bizarre beast. On the one hand, it is a demanding profession that takes years to master. However, there is something to be said for intangible natural talent, the kind of talent that lies dormant within persons in entirely separate fields until they are given the opportunity to transition. Tyler Perry has always been an actor, so his, shall we say, “Cross”over this weekend doesn’t seem an enormous stretch. But Perry is far better known as a director and he’s never before shouldered a leading role, an action hero no less, of the magnitude of Alex Cross. This got us thinking about some of the other, even more unconventional places from which film stars have transitioned:
From Rapper to Actor: Mos Def
Music is an essential component to any film; the soundtrack and score often providing the pulse of the movie. With this inextricable link between the two mediums, it’s not surprising that so many musicians have made the transition to acting. What is interesting to note is the variance of genres of music from which these actors hail. Yasiin Bey, better known to the world as Mos Def, is one of the most influential voices in hip-hop, and yet his film catalogue is not without its fair share of success as well. He’s appeared in films like Monster’s Ball, Be Kind Rewind, and crowd-pleasers like The Italian Job. He was also absolutely brilliant as Ford Prefect in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
From Folk Singer to Actor: Tom Waits
There are in fact so many musicians who have made the leap to film that it impossible to construct this list and only feature one. Though Tom Waits’ style of music could not be more different from that of Mos Def, like the rapper, Waits is constantly experimenting and redefining his sound. That creative flexibility may lend itself to his innate screen presence. Though he just delivered an outstanding turn in Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths, and has become a favorite performer of indie director Jim Jarmusch, the role that represents the crown jewel of his film career is Renfield in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. He perfectly inhabits the role with an unsettling mastery of measured madness.
From Convict to Actor: Danny Trejo
Danny Trejo has made name for himself throughout his career playing primarily bad dudes. This inclination toward characters that reside comfortably outside the boundaries of the law is actually not much of a mystery. For much of his life, Trejo dealt with a drug addiction and was in and out of prison, even earning the title of Pennsylvania state prison boxing champ while serving an eleven-year sentence. He started his film career accidentally, playing background heavies and henchmen before Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado earned him national attention. Sometimes naturalism and life experience can overwhelmingly supersede occupational experience.
From Football Player to Actor: Fred “The Hammer” Williamson
Fred Williamson became an icon of blaxploitatoin in the 1970s, and one of its brightest stars. But before he was putting the hurt on bad guys in films like Boss, Black Caesar, and Bucktown, he earned his hard-hitting nickname playing in the NFL. The Hammer proved to have just as much charisma on the screen as he had aptitude on the gridiron. Hammer became such a mainstay of the subgenre that he was able to demand a strict set of rules for the characters he played. He was to win all of his fights, always get the girl, and he absolutely could not be killed. Quentin Tarantino was such a fan that he wrote him into the script for From Dusk Til Dawn.
From War Hero to Actor: Audie Murphy
On the flipside of the method movie star track is Audie Murphy. Murphy became a cinematic icon for playing war heroes; seemed to have an instinctive knack for it. Turns out, before becoming an actor, Murphy was in fact a highly decorated World War II veteran. The reports of his deeds during the various campaigns read like the greatest of Hollywood screenplays. He apparently leapt onto a burning tank, which could have exploded at any time, in order to use the tank-mounted machine gun to save his battalion from advancing Germans. It’s not often you see movie stars who are legitimate action heroes before they are ever in front of a camera.
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[Photo Credit: Summit Entertainment]
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My favorite aspect of being an online film journalist -- or blogger, if you’re a fan of brevity -- is the opportunities it offers to meet my heroes. When those heroes bear names few people have heard of, it’s all the more rewarding. Absent is the narcissistic desire for future name-dropping, and in its place grows the realization of a true movie-geek dream. That being said, William Lustig is a name every fan of exploitation and horror should know. As a matter of fact, one of the greatest things about Lustig is that his films are of such a high caliber that they resonate even with those who harbor no passion for grindhouse cinema. I recently interviewed Mr. Lustig for Cinematical in conjunction with his visit to Austin to host screenings of three of his films at the Alamo Drafthouse -- each screening being immortalized with its very own limited edition Mondo Tees poster.
Here’s the interview that inspired me to provide this crash course in Lustigology.
Much like Martin Scorsese, William Lustig is a filmmaker whose identity is inextricably linked to New York City. His films explore the authentic grittiness of the big city as well as some absurdly magnificent supernatural elements. He never skimps on the genre-based shocks and thrills, but his films are sharper, more ambitious, and far more competent than the vast majority of the cult films of his era. Here are a few Lustig essentials with which you should acquaint yourself…
Maniac (1980)
In what should have been a conventional serial-killer flick, Maniac is a masterpiece of low-budget artistry. Lustig gets an awe-inspiring, career-defining performance out of lead actor Joe Spinell, whose psychotic murderer Frank Zito is truly the stuff of nightmares. The entire story is told from Zito’s perspective, which lends a dark introspection to Maniac and dares you to sympathize with this monster. The cinematography is far more refined than one would expect from an exploitation film, and even the grisly horror effects are beautifully executed -- a credit to the master of practical horror, Tom Savini. Lustig’s all-consuming love for horror shines through the grime and allows Maniac to stand out among its contemporaries.
Vigilante (1983)
Here, again, Lustig takes what should be painfully standard exploitation fare and hones it into something remarkable. This time it’s a revenge film about a blue-collar factory worker whose wife and son are attacked by a gangster. When that gangster manages to cheat the system and get released, the grieving father turns to his coworkers -- who moonlight as, what else, vigilantes -- for help. Once again, the performances and the photography really elevate the material. Your heart goes out to Robert Forster as he exhausts every legal recourse at his disposal and ends up having to venture into a bloodstained moral gray area to find justice. Fred “The Hammer” Williamson is superb as the toughest member of this self-appointed law enforcement squad, and the fact that they ride around in a big black van gives the movie a sadistic A-Team vibe.
Maniac Cop (1988)
Of the three films covered here, Maniac Cop is by far the most absurd. It’s about an NYPD super cop who gets too close to uncovering political corruption and is framed for a crime he didn’t commit. While in prison, he is murdered by the criminals he helped put there. But he returns from the grave to get his vengeance on the police force, politicians and anyone found guilty…of being in his way. Maniac Cop is 50 lbs of fun in a 20 lb bag. It’s one of the only times a slasher film and an action film find glorious communion in a single movie as the film features just as much amazing stunt work as it does brutal slayings. Maniac Cop is also a who’s who of cult icons: Bruce Campbell, Tom Atkins, Robert Z’Dar, Richard Roundtree and William Smith. I dare you not to enjoy it.
William Lustig has proven himself a hero to movie geeks not only as a director but also as a distributor. His company, Blue Underground, has released stunning transfers of some of the greatest cult and horror films of all time. Sergio Corbucci’s off-the-wall Western, Django, Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead, and Dario Argento’s Bird with the Crystal Plumage are just a few of the films given a pristine high-def treatment by Blue Underground -- in addition to Lustig’s own Maniac and Vigilante. Later this year, the company will also give us Blu-rays of Fulci’s Zombie and House by the Cemetery. Like most of us, Lustig is a movie geek, one who not only made movies especially for us but also founded an entire distribution company because he got so tired of spending too much to import Japanese Laserdiscs that he opted to license the films himself. My hat’s off to you, sir.

Machete is coming, and I don’t think you’re ready. This week Danny Trejo hacks and slashes his way to bloody satisfaction. For those of you unfamiliar with this project, it began life as a faux trailer that played between the two segments of the 2007 Rodriguez/Tarantino co-production Grindhouse. Much in the same way that Machete is a celebration of the revenge films from the 42nd Street era, I intend to celebrate some of my favorite classic, score-settling revenge cinema. I want to make sure I am adequately prepared for people who may or may not mess with the wrong Mexican.
Thriller (AKA They Call Her One Eye)
First up is a nasty little treat from the sleaziest country on the planet: Sweden? Christina Lindberg plays a girl kidnapped, drugged, and forced into prostitution. I typically am not a fan of the female rape/revenge films (I Spit on Your Grave is reprehensible in all ways), and I won’t lie, the first half is incredibly explicit and very hard to watch. But by the time you get to the slow-motion, beautifully photographed shotgun rampage, you’ll understand why this film makes almost every list of the best revenge films of the '70s. The scene in which she loses her eye features one of the most grisly, and unflinching, practical effects I’ve ever seen.
Rolling Thunder
Major Charles Rane lost his wife and child during a robbery -- and his right arm. But when he replaces that arm with a razor-sharp hook, he becomes a savage wraith with nothing to lose. As much as William Devane owns in this film, and he truly does, the real reason to watch is his costar: a baby-faced little upstart named Tommy Lee Jones. Jones plays an army buddy of Devane’s who spends most of the movie silent -- that is, until Rane informs him he has found the men who murdered his family. At which point Jones stoically stands and nonchalantly states, “I’ll just get my gear.” You can guess what happens next.
Coffy
One of my all-time favorite subgenres of exploitation has to be blaxploitation. If you are a fan of revenge films, blaxploitation should be your bread and butter. The spirit of the movement -- black heroes/heroines fighting back against the white establishment -- manifests itself in an entire catalogue of wronged protagonists bathing the streets in blood. My pick of the litter has to be Pam Grier in Coffy. The scene in which she shotguns the dope pushers who caused her sister’s overdose is a hallmark of Grier’s legendary badass status.
Mad Max
Another of my favorite exploitation subgenres is Ozploiation. Australia put out some of the most unabashedly awesome films from 1970 to 1989, and one of them was a low-budget preapocalyptic revenge thriller called Mad Max. Yes, I know Mel has since actually gone mad, but watching him systematically hunt down the marauders who murdered his family is sinfully entertaining. This film is so good that the writers of Saw constructed an entire franchise out of the final kill in Mad Max -- Max chaining a thug to a burning car and giving him a hacksaw to cut through his foot before the car explodes.
Death Wish
Charles Bronson made his mark on American cinema playing a regular Joe whose family is assaulted and who spends the rest of the film on a one-man crusade against crime. And of course by “crusade” I mean he blasts fools into next week with a gun the size of a trumpet. What is so great about Death Wish, apart from Jeff Goldblum making his film debut as one of the attackers, is that Bronson’s character is so tortured by his bloodlust that it keeps him sympathetic despite the fact he’s killing more than just those who wrong his family. Also, did I mention the gun the size of a trumpet?
Vigilante
When you take two cult heroes of mine, Robert Forster and Fred 'The Hammer' Williamson, and put them in the same film, you already have my attention. When you let the director of Maniac Cop helm a film about factory workers who moonlight as outlaws cleaning up what the court system lets slip through the cracks, you win my heart. It’s not enough that these guys fear no gangster, drug dealer or vicious criminal in the city and beat them all to a bloody pulp; they do their work in a tricked-out van a la the A-Team!

He's been tinkering with his gameplan for the past several weeks, but the skepticism surrounding comedian Dennis Miller's schtick in the "Monday Night Football" broadcast booth might begin to fade now. After three so-so preseason games, Miller made his regular-season "MNF" debut Monday night, and today many TV critics are taking a different view of the would-be, latter-day Howard Cosell.
The consensus: He was funny, and not nearly as annoying as we thought.
"Miller refrained from too much over-the-top esoterica, picking his spots to go for laughs," writes Howard Fendrich of The Associated Press.
Miller, as everyone knows, was hired during the summer to fill a void and stir up interest in ABC's long-running sports program. But during the three exhibition games, Miller took a lot of heat for his freewheeling use of arcane jokes during the games, wherein he referenced everything and everyone from the sword of Damocles to Sylvia Plath.
Fendrich adds: "Also unlike the three preseason games, [announcer Al] Michaels and new analyst Dan Fouts refrained from giggling at each of Miller's jokes -- another improvement."
Steve Harvey, writing in the Los Angeles Times, pointed out that Miller's tenure in the booth is already more successful than that of ex-football great Fred "Hammer" Williamson, who was hired as a color analyst in 1974 but was fired before the regular season started.
Already, Harvey writes, Miller has made at least one "classic line" -- his musing as to whether the Budweiser blimp was pilot by actor Bruce Dern. "The reference was to the 1977 movie 'Black Sunday,' in which a blimp-pilot terrorist played by Dern tries to blow up the Super Bowl."
Miller may have won over the critics, but perhaps now he should beware the sponsors.

Produced and co-starred with fellow 1970s Blaxploitation stars in "Original Gangstas"

Summary

This devilishly handsome former football player managed to parlay his sports fame into a career in acting, writing and directing. Born and raised in Gary, IN, Williamson spent the 1960s playing football for the Kansas City Chiefs. He made his acting debut at the age of 31 in the 1969 TV-movie "Deadlock" and in 1970 became a regular on the series "Julia", as the law student boyfriend of star Diahann Carroll.